“The first in-game month spanned only 5 days in the real world, but it would be no exaggeration to say it changed everything. Extending your life, a long cherished dream of humanity, was now functionally possible. Corporations rushed to cash in, flooding an already crowded game with teeming hordes of inexperienced but eager players. The New Era of Man Online sparked the largest series of investments since the end of the Second World War.”

  Excerpt taken from “Virtual World, Real Impacts”

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 30, 19:00

  Torgon and friends slipped out of the auction house, and guards from the trading firm discreetly escorted them to the Deep Harbor exit portal. Their buying and selling had been higher profile than they wanted, and they needed to lay low for a while. Arriving back at the guild base, they were met by dozens of children waiting around for their return. The chatter amongst the crowd quieted down and they stared expectantly at the returning party.

  Digger stepped forward, “Can we see it? All of us pitched in coins to help buy it.”

  Torgon snorted in amusement and pulled the gauntlet out. The silvery metal shone brightly, and the swirls of mana in the air thickened. The rush of magical energy created a refreshing sensation for everyone present. “I don’t know exactly what it does yet but I’m going to find out. I’m on my way to the crafting halls and I’ll share the details that I can. Some may need to be kept secret though so don’t complain too much if the information is sparse.” Digger nodded seriously and the excited group of children broke up to drift back to their own amusements.

  Torgon headed directly to the specialized weapon crafting hall, eager to try out the single most expensive gaming item he had ever possessed. A small crowd followed him, desperate to see the gauntlet in action. He shook his head and tried to put them out of his mind. Buying the gauntlet was risk, albeit a calculated one.

  The transformation of the crafting hall eased Torgon’s worry over the amount of coins he had just invested. Improving one floor of the crafting hall and a weapon specialization room ameliorated some of the sting of the expense. The upgraded sections of building left behind their basic utilitarian appearance, replacing the plain stone and wooden shell with roughly carved depictions of crafters at work.

  Hyperia shooed everyone else away, directing the curious onlookers to return to whatever tasks they needed to accomplish before the base raid in 35 hours. She stayed, along with Ovarrix and Dusty. Allestor joined them, and they quietly took spots to watch Torgon. He arranged his workstation and placed the gauntlet on the table in front of him. He removed his gloves, rolled up his sleeve and readied himself to bind the growth item.

  He lifted the gauntlet and slid his right hand inside. He pulled the gauntlet down, fully inserting his fingers in the flexible metal. The gauntlet shrank to fit him perfectly and a system prompt appeared.

  “Would you like to bind the Gauntlet of Creation? Warning, this item will consume 10% of the experience you earn while using it to fuel its growth.”

  Torgon selected yes and a brilliant white glow erupted from the gauntlet. The metal turned into a flowing quicksilver liquid that slid down his arm and continued until it reached his shoulder. He flexed his arm, now encased in metal. Torgon couldn’t feel the gauntlet at all, and his movements remained smooth and fluid.

  He inspected the item and an array of information, stats, and prompts appeared before him.

  “Gauntlet of Creation, Basic (Growth). Level 1, 0/1000 experience. This item boosts all crafting skills by its level. It provides a 1% chance to increase the rank of an item by one. When used for gathering, it increases the chance for a rare drop by 1%. Ten percent of all experience earned while using the item for crafting or wielding an item created by the gauntlet is used to increase the level of the item. The item’s rank will be upgraded every 10 levels, beginning with an upgrade to Common rank at level 10. This item may gain additional abilities with increases in rank, completion of quests or the absorption of compatible materials.”

  “Would you like to toggle the appearance to invisible?”

  Torgon chose to hide the gauntlet for now. His arm returned to its normal appearance, and he knew the gauntlet was still present, but he couldn’t feel it. He waved his arm around and looked at the quizzical expressions of his party. “It can hide its appearance. I’m sure enough spies have reported that we bought it by now, but maybe they won’t realize I have it on all the time.”

  He shared the information screens from the gauntlet with the others in the command party. “Now, I need everyone to get the hell out. I’m going to craft for the next day at least. I want to see how this thing works in action.” Torgon gently herded them all out of the door and returned to his station, eager to finally craft again.

  Torgon checked his bonuses and realized that his amulet of crafting was no longer giving him a boost. He removed the amulet and put it back on, causing a prompt to appear.

  “Gauntlets of Creation can absorb Amulet of Crafting for 500 experience points. Would you like to do so?”

  Torgon thought it over then declined. He took the amulet off and made it available in the guild storage for other crafters. It served him well and would continue to serve others in the guild long into the future. His hands moved deftly, aided by the gauntlet, piecing together a new bow. He lovingly crafted a new bow, new sword and several gathering tools for his own personal use, ensuring that he would earn experience for the gauntlet with their use.

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  Torgon ran to the quarry with his new pick and immediately started hammering away at the stone. His needed to haul in as much stone and as much experience as possible. He planned to quarry stone for twelve straight hours with minimal breaks for food and water. He started off quarrying a block of stone every 23 seconds. In the first two hours he managed to increase his gathering skill to 12 and shave another half second off each harvest. After six hours, the gauntlet of creation had gained its second level. Now it was raising each of his crafting skills by 2 levels. The cost per level followed the same pathway as skills, increasing by 15% per level. The early levels would come quickly and then slow down, requiring more effort to gain each bit of power.

  The last six hours gave him enough experience to increase the Gauntlets of Creation to level 3. Gathering made experience incredibly fast if the nodes were available, but the boredom could be soul crushing. The biggest news for Torgon was his crafting master skill finally hitting level 2. It had taken a full month to see his first master skill increase, but now he would be able to accelerate every single one of his crafting plans.

  Torgon forced himself to get some sleep, taking a longer than normal four hours of rest while the guild hummed along. The new month had begun, and the dawning of the 2nd day would see the guild fight to defend their base against five waves of 20,000 creatures each. The monsters would be stronger than any of the prior base assaults, leaving him with a vague sense of unease and worry.

  Sir Boots crept into Torgon’s house and lay down next to him. Torgon awoke briefly, grumbled and adjusted his position to let his house cat, now the size of a Bengal tiger, take his generous portion of the bed. Barkolemew joined them both later, blinking above Torgon and plopping down half beside him and half on top of him. He smiled, despite being awoken again, at the wondrous reality of having his two best friends in the whole world sharing this adventure with him.

  The three of them grabbed food from the kitchens and headed to the park. Torgon removed the plate of scrambled eggs, toast and fruit and tucked in. Barkolemew took an entire roasted chicken from inventory and chowed down. Sir Boots removed three large catfish and consumed them entirely. The trio watched the fountain before they broke off to their own tasks. Barkolemew headed towards the lake to play lifeguard and retriever, Sir Boots headed into the woods to commence a slaughter, the likes of which felines the world over dreamed of and Torgon returned to crafting.

  Torgon watched Sir Boots leave, eyeing the level 19 tag over the cat. “System, is Sir Boots leveling so fast because he doesn’t have to earn twice as much xp per level?” He didn’t expect a reply, but he got one anyway.

  The system responded, “Sir Boots must earn the same experience as any other resident to level. He is merely very efficient at what nature designed him to do. He has completed more kill quests than any three other players.”

  Torgon shook his head in bemusement at the no longer little serial killer and moved on. He parked himself inside the specialist weapon crafting room and prepared himself to spend the next 18 hours crafting bows for the huge influx of players in the guild that weren’t level 10 yet. Each bow would take him just under 6 minutes. His chance of success on each craft was a whopping 130%. A third of the enchanted bows he made would upgrade to common rank.

  A few hours into the crafting session he noticed a curious result. One of the bows wasn’t basic or common. It had reached the advanced rank. Torgon puzzled out that the 1% chance to improve the quality of a craft from the gauntlets applied after the result was initially determined. Instead of raising his chance by 1% to craft a common rank, each basic craft had a 1% chance to be raised to common, and each common craft had the same 1% chance to be raised to advanced. The value of the gauntlet rose even higher in Torgon’s future planning.

  The long session ended with over 200 enchanted long bows available for the upcoming raid. He put his crafting dreams on hold and ventured out to help finish the preparations for their battle. The bows were dumped into the guild storage and made available for any player willing to use them in the fight. Sir Boots and Barkolemew were waiting at the central keep near where Ovarrix issued orders to groups eager to find their place.

  Ovarrix spotted Torgon approaching and called out to him, “Torg! We’ve already distributed the AoE weapons. Nearly everyone has common ranked area of effect skills they can use when they have the available mana or energy. New siege weapons are ready to go with their teams to man them. We’re as ready as we can be.”

  Torgon looked over the thousands of people in the guild. They were spread across the base, every spot defended and stocked with reserves. Lines of barricades surrounded the approaches to the defense towers and the gate. Trenches had been dug on the approaches from the monster spawning sites. The air was anticipatory, bordering on festive. Torgon furrowed his brow, asking, “Why is everybody so excited?”

  Allestor slapped Torgon on the back with a laugh. “Free XP! The monsters are coming to them and the rewards for winning are nice. A few people have been betting on what level the monsters will start at. The pool ranges from 2 to 5 with most money on 3. Do you want in on that action?”

  Torgon felt the tension ease and he chuckled, “No, I just want to kill them all, see what drops and make any necessary repairs.”

  Dusty walked over and delivered a report of her own, “We unlocked the bottom tier of siege weapon and automaton blueprints. A few players are making siege weapons to sell on the auction house. The automatons are all being stored for guild purposes. If we run into a sticky situation, we can dump nearly 600 units that we’ve stockpiled. Over half are the level 5 models that our golem department has been continuously building, and the rest are the new ones that people are dabbling in.”

  Hyperia noticed Torgon’s interest and cut him off, “No Torg, not yet. If you’re crafting, you need to make weapons. You can dabble later when you earn more free experience to dump into the necessary skills.”

  He sighed dramatically, “Fine. I will suffer and be the crafting slave for the guild.”

  A random person standing nearby chimed in, “For 10,000 gold on a crafting item you’re damn right you’ll be the guild crafting slave.” Dusty and Allestor doubled over in laughter and even Hyperia couldn’t keep a straight face.

  Torgon sighed again, outdoing his prior dramatics. “The master has become the minion.” He turned his attention to the surrounding areas and moved into the spot where his bow could range the largest number of targets. “Let’s get this raid done and then head back to the Broken Hills. I want to kill thousands of monsters and or other players for experience.”